Chapter 16
Lirael
Victoria led me through elegant corridors toward the rear gardens, posture suggesting confidence but hands clenched just tight enough to betray nervousness, and I followed with the careful attention you'd give a snake that hadn't yet decided to strike. She'd changed into a silver cocktail dress that probably cost a fortune, had repaired her makeup until no trace of the wine remained, but I could smell the rage on her like cheap perfume—sharp and chemical and desperate.
That's right, Victoria. Lead me right where you want me. Let's see how this plays out.
The outdoor pool area was an infinity pool reflecting moonlight, white roses and climbing ivy framing the space in arrangements that probably required a team of gardeners. It was also, I'd noted reviewing security footage earlier, one of the few areas with a convenient camera blind spot—which meant Victoria had chosen this deliberately, which meant whatever she had planned required privacy.
Perfect. Absolutely fucking perfect. Privacy works both ways, bitch.
We stopped near the pool's edge, far enough from the building that the party's music faded to background noise. Victoria turned to face me, and I watched her expression shift from false warmth to naked hatred with the kind of speed that suggested she'd been holding back too long.
"You're supposed to be dead," she said, voice low and vicious. "Or locked up in some Genesis Foundation cell being studied like the freak you are. How the hell are you here?"
I met her gaze without flinching, letting my own mask drop to reveal cold calculation underneath. "Disappointed?"
Yeah, I bet you are. I bet you thought you'd gotten rid of me for good.
"You're a monster," she hissed. "An abomination. You were never supposed to survive—"
"And yet here I am," I said softly. "Still breathing. Still standing. Still very much alive despite your family's best efforts to bleed me dry."
Still here despite everything you did to me. Still here to make you pay.
Her face twisted with rage. "You think you can just walk back into society? Pretend to be normal? Everyone who sees you knows what you are—a freak, a thing that doesn't deserve to exist."
"Funny," I said, voice carrying pleasant tone that made the words cut deeper. "I was just thinking the same about your family. All that wealth you're so proud of, all those connections you brag about—every fucking penny came from selling me. From torturing me until I cried, collecting my tears, and trading them like commodities."
Every. Single. Penny. Built on my pain while you played dress-up and pretended to be a princess.
I took a step closer, watching her flinch. "The Hartfield family fortune? Built on my pain. Your designer clothes? Purchased with my suffering. That house you live in, those parties you throw, that status you cling to so desperately—all of it bought with a child's tears while you stood and watched and smiled."
While you fucking smiled and helped hold me down.
"We gave you a home!" Victoria spat. "We took you in when you had nothing—"
"You made me eat my pet," I said flatly, watching her face go pale. "You starved my silver deer, locked it in a closet until it died, then served it to me for dinner and laughed when I realized what I was eating. You were twelve years old, and you thought that was entertainment."
"You're not even human," she whispered, voice shaking. "Why should we have treated you like—"
"Like a person?" I finished. "Like a child who'd lost everything and needed kindness instead of cruelty? You're right, I'm not human. But I've never done to anyone what your family did to me, which makes me wonder—between the two of us, who's really the fucking monster?"
Spoiler alert, Victoria: it's you. It's always been you.
She moved fast, hands shoving hard against my shoulders trying to push me into the pool's deep water, and I felt the calculated violence in it, the desire not just to humiliate but to harm.
There it is. There's that vicious bitch I remember.
But I'd been ready, had known the moment she'd suggested this location what she intended, and my finger pressed the trigger on my phone even as I let the momentum carry me backward.
The estate's electrical system died with a sound like thunder, every light extinguishing simultaneously, and the sudden darkness was absolute except for the moon's pale glow. I heard Victoria's triumphant laugh, heard the splash she expected, but what she didn't know was that I'd activated the pool's surrounding ivy the moment we'd stepped onto the terrace, had whispered instructions in the old language.
Surprise, bitch.
The vines caught me mid-fall, weaving into a living net that arrested my descent and deposited me gently on the pool's edge, and I crouched there in darkness with my enhanced vision showing me everything while Victoria remained blind.
"Grab her," I whispered to the ivy, and watched the vines surge toward Victoria with directed intelligence that had nothing to do with natural growth.
She screamed as they wrapped around her ankles, pulling her off balance, and then she was the one falling, the one hitting water with a splash that echoed across the terrace. I stood on the pool's edge as she surfaced, thrashing and choking—she'd never learned to swim, had always been afraid of water—and watched her panic with the same cold satisfaction she must've felt watching me suffer.
How does it feel, Victoria? How does it feel to be the helpless one for once?
"This is the first installment," I said softly, knowing she probably couldn't hear over her own terrified splashing.
And this is just the beginning.
The lights came back exactly thirty seconds later, backup generators kicking in with perfect timing, and I heard shouts as people rushed toward the commotion. I stepped back from the pool's edge, arranging my expression into concern, and when the first guests arrived I was standing there with my dress perfectly dry while Victoria floundered in the deep end, her silver cocktail dress clinging to her body and her carefully styled hair plastered to her skull.
Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Look at you now, Victoria. Not so pretty when you're drowning, are you?
Security pulled her out with a rescue ring, and she emerged coughing and crying, makeup running down her face in dark streaks, and I watched with detached interest as she tried to form words through gasping.
"She—she pushed me!" Victoria finally managed, pointing at me with a shaking hand. "She tried to drown me!"
Cry all you want. No one's going to believe you. Not anymore.
"That's not what I saw," Ethan said, appearing at my elbow with cold disgust directed at Victoria. "I saw you lose your footing in the dark. The security footage will confirm it." He was lying—the cameras had been disabled during the blackout—but his certainty made Victoria's accusations sound hysterical.
People were pulling out phones, photographing Victoria's destruction, and I could already see the social media posts forming. The whispers started—"Did you see her fall?" "So embarrassing" "I heard she was drunk"—and I watched Victoria's carefully constructed image crumble with each captured moment.
That's right. Watch it all fall apart. Watch everything you built on my suffering turn to ashes.
"I think you should leave," Ethan said to Victoria, voice carrying enough authority that security moved to flank her. "Before you cause any more disruption."
They escorted her away—dripping and humiliated and making increasingly wild accusations no one seemed inclined to believe—and I stood there in my perfectly dry black dress accepting concerned inquiries with appropriate responses while inside I felt nothing but cold satisfaction.
One down. But this is just the beginning. Just the fucking beginning, Victoria. By the time I'm done with you, you'll wish you'd stayed drowned.
Ethan touched my arm gently. "Are you all right? I'm sorry you had to deal with that shit."
"I'm fine," I assured him, and meant it. "Thank you for believing me."
Thank you for being one of the few decent people in this godforsaken city.
His smile was warm and genuine. "Always. Come on—let's get you back inside. I believe we were discussing that investment opportunity before we were so rudely interrupted."
I let him guide me back toward the Moon Hall, aware of eyes following us, whispers that had shifted from Victoria's humiliation to speculation about who I was. The party resumed, the incident already becoming just another piece of gossip, and I felt the familiar weight of performance settling over me.